Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

What do Starbucks and JetBlue and KrispyKreme and Apple and DutchBoy and Kensington and Zespri and Hard Candy have that you don't? How do they continue to confound critics and achieve spectacular growth, leaving behind former tried-and true brands to gasp their last? Face it, the checklist of tired P's marketers have used for decades to get their product noticed - Pricing, Promotion, Publicity, to name a few - aren't working anymore.

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Publisher's Summary

You're either a Purple Cow or you're not. You're either remarkable or invisible. Make your choice. What do Starbucks and JetBlue and KrispyKreme and Apple and DutchBoy and Kensington and Zespri and Hard Candy have that you don't? How do they continue to confound critics and achieve spectacular growth, leaving behind former tried-and true brands to gasp their last?

Face it, the checklist of tired P's marketers have used for decades to get their product noticed - Pricing, Promotion, Publicity, to name a few -aren't working anymore. There's an exceptionally important P that has to be added to the list. It's Purple Cow. Cows, after you've seen one, or two, or 10, are boring. A Purple Cow, though...now that would be something.

Purple Cow describes something phenomenal, something counterintuitive and exciting and flat-out unbelievable. Every day, consumers come face to face with a lot of boring stuff - a lot of brown cows - but you can bet they won't forget a Purple Cow. And it's not a marketing function that you can slap on to your product or service. Purple Cow is inherent. It's built right in, or it's not there. Period.

In Purple Cow, Seth Godin urges you to put a Purple Cow into everything you build, and everything you do, to create something truly noticeable. It's a manifesto for marketers.

I found this book so informative and interesting, that I listened to it twice. It is easy to listen to, and full of insight. I highly recommend this book to anyone in any line of work, especially small business owners.

I've become a big fan of Seth Godin in recent months, and this audiobook didn't disappoint. The Purple Cow is the truly unique and remarkable product, service, benefit or feature that can make your brand stand apart from the countless boring - and floundering - brands out there.

Godin's very good at weaving together his advice, anecdotes and theories, and I came away from Purple Cow feeling newly energized with creative and innovative ideas. The man himself is a living demonstration of the power of creative brand-building, and I hope his ideas keep flowing freely for a long time yet.

I am a big fan of Seth Godin. I am on Tribes on Ning, I have interviewed him in my blog, and I read most things he posts or publishes.

And for me, this is probably his best work to date. The entire concept of the purple cow is simple - be remarkable. But as always he supports this with many layers of examples, tactics and case studies.

Seth provides many great examples and ideas about how one could go about making themselves or their product/service remarkable. I found the statements around making a product remarkable from inception to be really enlightening.

I'm seriously rethinking how I'm running my business and marketing my services. I'm playing it way too safe (which makes me much less successful than I could be) if Seth is right and I suspect he is.

The value of the The Purple Cow is entirely in its premise: you need an outstanding product or service or not only will you not sell anything, but you will be ignored.

Another reviewer succinctly warned that the book was all repetition and not to bother with a purchase. Well, I like to think for myself and often take reviews lightly as sometimes reviewers have agendas that aren't apparent. My loss.

Seth probably wrote the whole concept with all branches in a page of single spaced 10 pitch font. His discussion, I think, is intended to make him look like he is a Purple Cow. I had the audio speed at 1.25 but should have bumped it up higher. I would have lost nothing.

Sorry Seth, but shallow sells as well as boring. Your next book will be hard to pick out in the vast Audible library.

This is a rather fluffy overview of several more substantive books (Geoff Moore's Crossing the Chasm and Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point) that uses cutesy names (ideavirus and purple cows) to describe phenomena that are already well documented in well researched and supported books. When the books does try to move into original areas the concepts tend to be very general and at times even wrong if you are familiar with the research.

I was looking for more original thinking and advice on practical ways to apply the concepts discussed in the books.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Gladwell's new book.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

The actual reading of the book was fine.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Purple Cow?

Remove the cutesy names for things and add some substance. Turn this book into one chapter of a more substantive book.

Any additional comments?

This book is as very easy listen and will give you a basic introduction to the concepts covered. If you don't have time to read the more substantive books, this one isn't a terrible overview.

The title initially made me dubious but I was sold by what the book was offering. This book is a MUST HAVE for every small business and larger businesses could also learn from this. The best read I have had in years and every sentence has had me thinking, reviewing and processing my own business. I wish I had found this book a few years back. Hoping Seth has more for us to learn from. Thank you.

3 of 4 people found this review helpful

Sarah Jane

Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

11/26/10

Overall

"Must read"

This is a must read for anyone in business - get this, you need this!

0 of 3 people found this review helpful

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